


Love the Sky to Death

by azraelgeffen



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-05-01
Updated: 2014-05-04
Packaged: 2018-01-21 12:20:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1550234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/azraelgeffen/pseuds/azraelgeffen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry Potter sets out to investigate who has been sending hate mail to former Death Eaters, and uncovers something far deadlier than he'd first feared.</p>
<p>I really suck at summaries, sorry :(</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. One

**Chapter One**  
  
Narcissa Malfoy had a fondness for storms. She loved the clouds; the way they swirled through the sky, colouring it in varying shades of grey. These rushes of grey reminded her of things she loved; of passion; of words that never needed to be spoken. They were the shades of love. They were the colours that made up her loved one’s eyes. If she pushed herself to reflect on her adoration of inclement weather, she would have to admit that she’d developed her fondness for rain not long after meeting her husband, Lucius. It had been the first thing that had drawn her to him. He’d been a proud adolescent then; sure of himself and his place in society. His demeanour had, at first, repelled her, and then she had seen his eyes. No matter what mask he wore, Lucius’s eyes always gave him away. A swirling storm of emotion locked inside two orbs, all for her to stare into with adoration. Their son had those same eyes, and with his birth Narcissa’s love of storms had grown.  
  
As she peered out of the kitchen window, one bleak Friday morning, she looked up at the storming sky, and smiled in spite of herself. Given how wet the winter had been, she should have been thrilled; but the rain had been coming down relentlessly for weeks now, and stones of the courtyard had started to sink into the mud. It was beginning to look like a swampy bog out there, but a ruined courtyard did not concern her at that moment. She turned her attention from the sky to the sight of the two men running across the sodden mire. Her husband and her son, both out doing chores early, were charging for the kitchen door, and by the look of it they were both soaked. The Impervious charms were clearly not performing their office. Watching them, she wondered how it was that two men could look so alike and yet be so very different in temperament. Draco was slightly taller, and a little leaner, and she sometimes flattered herself that there was a delicacy to his features that he owed to her, but from a distance they could be twins.  
  
She loved them both desperately of course, and she hated seeing them soaking wet and running across a muddy courtyard, but she was more than aware that they each had work to be done, and that it wasn’t the first time they’d been drenched before dawn.  
  
Lucius Malfoy didn’t bother to stop and wipe his boots when he reached the back door; instead he threw it open and rushed inside, holding the door open for his son who was hot on his heels.  
  
“Close the door, you’re letting the heat out!” Narcissa cried as the pair dawdled, knocking the mud from their boots on the steps. Draco quickly closed the door, and set about unlacing his boots, while Lucius held up three eggs from the hen house as a peace offering to his wife before even attempting to attack his boots.  
  
“You’re soaked,” Narcissa said, her tone softening at the sight of the pair of them dripping beside her benches. She quickly took the eggs, and summoned two threadbare towels and handed them to the men. “Make sure you dry your hair, I don’t want you catching your death.”  
  
“It’s bloody cold,” Lucius said through chattering teeth while he shucked his coat off.  
  
“Then hurry up and get those wet things off.” She ushered them in and flicked her wand to intensify the kitchen’s warming charm. “Here, stand in front of the stove.”   
  
Draco slid his own coat off and hung it on the peg beside his father’s. He placed his boots carefully beside the stove to dry, and then visibly relaxed as the warmth of the kitchen wrapped around him. Narcissa was making porridge, just as she did most mornings in the winter. In recent years it was more than welcome. It warmed them from the inside, at that moment Draco desperately needed it. He sat down at the unpolished wooden table just as she set the bowl at his place.  
  
“Thanks mum.”  
  
“You shouldn’t be running around in the rain, Draco,” Narcissa scolded him gently. “What if you got sick? You know Delia Droste would love any excuse to fire you!”  
  
Lucius, who was still warming his hands in front of the stove, shook his head at her words.   
  
“They can’t fire him because he’s sick, Cissa. He could take her to the Wizengamot for unfair dismissal.”  
  
“The Wizengamot don’t care what happens to us,” Narcissa replied sharply. She shooed him away from the stove and steered him towards the table. “They’d think it a fine joke to see Draco out of a job.”  
  
As much as Draco hated to admit it, his mother was probably right; the Wizengamot would probably find it terribly amusing to see him out of a job. He doubted that Delia Droste would ever fire him though. As pitiful as his job may be, he was actually good at it. He worked as a clerk in the Misuse of Muggle Artefacts Office, which Delia had headed since the end of the war. It was hardly prestigious, but it was a job, and Delia had no idea of how his filing system worked, so she was in no hurry to let him go.  
  
It was a moot point anyway. He’d never had a sick day. Narcissa cared for them diligently, keeping them warm, nourished, and healthy. Neither Draco nor Lucius ever got sick, not even with a minor sniffle.  
  
After the war it became apparent, very quickly, that the Malfoy’s would lose everything. With Lucius sentenced to three years in Azkaban, Narcissa had taken charge of the house hold and made preparations for what was to come before the Ministry had even made it to their door. She moved herself and her son into what was once the servants’ wing of the manor, and planted the kitchen garden. The house was closed up, and the manor returned to what it had been more than a century before: a working farm. Lucius served his sentence in Azkaban, and returned to find his family and his home as changed as night was to day.   
  
They were untrusted and despised by the Wizarding world, and work was elusive for several years. By the time Draco was accepted to the Ministry, their vault at Gringotts was empty, and they had little but the roof over their heads and the animals in the yard. As it turned out, Lucius was a very good farmer. He maintained the house, fed, raised and slaughtered the animals, and orchestrated the planting and harvesting of their crops. His family would never have thought it possible had they not lived to see it.  
  
Draco summoned the post from the side bench, and winced as Narcissa dropped a spoon to the floor with a clatter.  
  
“Do you have to do that now?” Lucius asked. “Could you not wait until we have finished eating?”  
  
Narcissa glared at the offending stack of letters, looking as though she wanted to run as far from them as she could. Draco sighed and pushed them aside. He should have known better; his mother was usually out of the room before he even considered opening the post. He hadn’t been thinking; his mind was still on the effects that the wet weather was having on the things hanging in his drying room.  
  
When they had been forced to hand the family fortune, and most of the family heirlooms, over to the Ministry, Draco had discovered a wealth of ancient furniture mouldering away in one of the attics. Most of it was beyond repair, but some pieces were redeemable, and Draco decided to turn his attention to refurnishing their home. It had been a steep learning curve for a man who had never had to restore anything in his life. He’d started by working everything with magic, but he soon found that he achieved the best results if he worked the wood with a mix of magic and manual labour. He developed his own method of restoring the frames, and then weaving the body with a combination of wicker and reeds that he had been able to harvest from the estate. Alas, the chair he was trying to put together for the sitting room was feeling the effects of the damp, and no amount of magic was helping it.  
  
“You were up late last night,” he said to Narcissa, hoping to take her mind off the letters. “I saw the light in your sewing room after midnight.”  
  
“You shouldn’t have been up so late,” Narcissa replied, turning his words on him with brisk efficiency. “How do you think you’ll go at work on less than four hours sleep?”  
  
“I could ask the same of you.”  
  
“I don’t have to go out to work, Draco. And I wanted to get the cushions finished for the drawing room,” she said.  
  
It was typical of his mother; she worked as hard as anyone and yet she didn’t consider it work.   
  
“The third chair isn’t even finished yet,” Draco said. “And cushions aren’t so important that you should lose sleep over them.”  
  
The smallest of frowns crossed Narcissa’s brow.   
  
“I  _wanted_  to get them done,” she said. “You have done such a lovely job on the lounge, and I wanted them to compliment.”  
  
“It’s not like anyone is going to see them,” Draco said. “It would have been much better if you’d gotten some sleep.”  
  
Narcissa pushed her breakfast away.   
  
“ _I_  will see them,” she said quietly.  
  
Draco managed not to roll his eyes. He saw no point in piling cushions onto the couch he had created. With its pale scrubbed wood and calico upholstery, it seemed too plain for the heavily embroidered velvet that his mother was making. And such ornate flourishes were for households that happily showed off to visitors, and the Malfoy’s hadn’t had a visitor in years. But then, Narcissa had cut up her green dress robes to make the cushions, so he probably shouldn’t be so dismissive of her work.  
  
“I’m sure they’ll look lovely on the settee,” he said, but it sounded insincere. Lucius glared at him and his cheeks coloured. He hadn’t wanted to upset her; he just didn’t see the point in it.  
  
“There is nothing wrong with having nice things, Draco,” Lucius said. “We aren’t living in squalor! Your mother has taken the time to make something to compliment your work, and give us all pleasure. You should be grateful.”  
  
“I am.” Draco lifted his head and forced a smile. “I am grateful. Thank you, mum. They are going to look lovely on the lounge... I was just being a shit this morning.”  
  
“It’s alright, darling,” Narcissa said gently. She would forgive him anything and they all knew it. “You have a lot on your plate at the moment.”  
  
He really didn’t, but as his mother considered him the family bread-winner he officially ‘had a lot on his plate.’ His job at the Ministry did not come close to taxing his abilities, and other than his self imposed task of restoring enough furniture to make his family comfortable, and keeping their old car in a drivable state for those times they went down into the Muggle village, it was his only duty. If anyone truly worked hard on the estate, it was Lucius – but then judging from the noises that came from their room some nights, she rewarded him well enough for his hard work.  
  
He finished his breakfast, and glanced at the post again.   
  
“I’m going to have to open that before I go to work,” he said. “Unless  _you_  want to do it.”  
  
Narcissa gave him a strained look.  
  
“I have beds to make,” she said. “And I’m sure you will be far quicker with it than I would.” She took her bowl to the sink and quickly rinsed it. As she left the kitchen she gave the letters a fearful look. “Clean up any mess you make,” she said, and then she was gone.  
  
Draco reached for the pile of letters, and divided them in half, passing some to his father, who made noises about just forwarding them to the Ministry unopened. It was the same every day.  
  
“You know we can’t. If we send them to the Ministry and one explodes, they’ll have us for sending curses to the Auror Office.”  
  
Lucius grumbled further, but set about his task. The letters had started coming the morning after the Wizengamot had given Lucius a light sentence, and Draco and Narcissa had been pardoned. The pardon had come after Harry Potter had testified that Draco had been forced into Voldemort’s service, and that Narcissa had saved his life by lying to the Dark Lord. Eye witness testimony also confirmed that Lucius had turned away from Voldemort at the last minute, and he had been sentenced to three years, a gift in a Dementor-free Azkaban. The family had not argued. They had thanked the Wizengamot profusely, and got out of there. The public outcry that had followed was not unexpected, but then the public had no idea what it had cost them. The Ministry had demanded payment to rebuild their world, and they took every Galleon, Sickle and Knut that the Malfoys had.  
  
At first the letters had come in droves. It seemed that everyone with any kind of magical ability in their world wanted to write and tell them just how despicable they were, but over the term of a year, the letters dwindled down to around twenty or so a day. Some simply wanted to tell them that they were hated, most wanted to scare them with empty threats, and some promised unspeakable violence or contained curses aimed at harming them.  
  
“Oh here’s a nice one,” Lucius drawled, chewing on a piece of toast. “It’s threatening to castrate you so our miserable line will be ended… oh no, I lie, they are suggesting we castrate you and end our miserable line.”  
  
“Lovely,” Draco replied, aiming for sarcasm and missing the mark.  
  
“They’ve even drawn quite detailed instructions on how to do it; very creative…  _look._ ”  
  
Draco stared at his father and the obscenely illustrated letter he was holding up, and wondered if he would ever coax his balls down from his abdomen.   
  
“I’ll put that on the bad pile then, shall I?” Lucius asked with a smile.  
  
“Yeah,” Draco muttered. “Bad pile.”  
  
As per Ministry instruction, they forwarded the worst of the letters to the Auror Office at the Ministry of Magic for investigation. They’d been doing so for years, but Draco had given up hope that they’d do anything long ago. Now it was just force of six years’ habit that saw him sort the letters and forward them on.  
  
He placed a note telling him that they were a disgrace to the name ‘Wizard’ on the not so bad pile to be thrown on the fire later.  
  
He was on his third letter, when the envelope Lucius had just unsealed burst into flames. Lucius dropped it with a hiss, and Draco could see his fingers were already raw and bleeding. While his brain took seconds to remember where the Dittany was, it dawned on him that the envelope wasn’t simply going to burn itself out. The fire spread in rapid circles out from its source, crawling across the table top and consuming the wood as though it was paper. By the time he’d pulled his wand from his pocket to put it out, the fire had eaten the entire table top and the legs fell smouldering to the ground.  
  
Draco looked over to his father, who was standing with his back pressed to the dresser.  
  
“Are you alright?” he asked, his eyes drawn to his fathers’ bloodied fingers.  
  
“It’s nothing a little Dittany won’t fix,” Lucius replied, waving his fingers in the air as though to demonstrate how ‘nothing’ it was. Draco winced for him.  
  
“I saw an old table in the Muggle reclamation yard in the village,” Draco said quietly. “I’ll pick it up after work and get it fixed up.”  
  
Lucius nodded silently.  
  
Draco stared at the place where the table once stood. He wished it was an isolated incident so they could at least be outraged, but exploding hate mail was fairly common, and they were almost numb to it now. Still, he had really liked that table. It had been his first project.  
  
“I’m going to have a shower, and then I’m going to work. Tell mum not to worry about the table; I’ll get her a new one.”  
  
Lucius opened his mouth to say something, but Draco walked out of the kitchen before anything came out. 


	2. Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry Potter sets out to investigate who has been sending hate mail to former Death Eaters, and uncovers something far deadlier than he'd first feared.

**Chapter Two**  
  
Harry Potter was not having a great week. His former housemate, Cormac McLaggen, had published a book intimately titled “Harry and Me” and the resulting fallout had seen Harry hounded for comments and interviews by reporters from around the Wizarding community. It was the same every time someone laid public claim to a friendship or relationship with Harry Potter. The war had ended almost seven years before, and everyone still wanted to know about all the intimacies of his life. And just as the furore had started to die down, Harry had arrived at his office to find that Cormac McLaggen had sent Harry a copy of the book with a personal note of thanks.   
  
To Harry’s disgust, McLaggen had even signed the ill-conceived tome with a flourish that would render Gilderoy Lockhart proud. Harry had stared at the book, read the long winded note about camaraderie and friendship, and tossed them both in the general direction of the fireplace.   
  
Several books about the “real” Harry Potter had been published since the war had ended, all written by people who really didn’t know him, and Harry had made a point not to read any of them. Apparently the difference with this one was that McLaggen was claiming that Harry had been in love with him, and that he’d been forced to spurn Harry’s advances. He went on to add that Harry had been so stung by the rejection that he had reneged on an offer of making him the Gryffindor Keeper that year, and had put Ron Weasley in the position instead. It wasn’t true of course. The very idea of Cormac McLaggen being anywhere near his person was enough to make Harry’s skin crawl. But Harry had made a policy of not commenting on his sexuality or his relationships, and he didn’t plan on starting now. Ron, on the other hand, had made a very public statement on how ridiculous McLaggen’s claims were, and had called him a tosser into the bargain.   
  
Harry sat in his office, irritably watching the offending book burn slowly in the fireplace, and unwisely wishing that he had something better to do. It was quiet in the Auror office at that moment, and even if it hadn’t been Harry was still on light duties after an incident with a troll that had decided to rampage through Clapham two weeks earlier. Harry was not a fan of light duties. Especially since the healers at St Mungo’s had fixed up his cracked skull and internal bleeding within an hour of the troll clubbing him. If he even looked like stepping into the main office however, someone would ask if he was feeling alright, so he had stayed in the tiny office that Gawain Robards had given him when he had announced that Harry would be his successor when he retired. Harry had loved his little office at first; now it felt more like a prison.   
  
Just as he got bored enough to wonder if he should fish the book out of the grate and actually flick through a few pages, Hermione Granger burst into his office, slamming the door open so forcefully that she knocked his Order of Merlin off the wall. Harry jumped, and glanced at the burning book guiltily. He wondered if Hermione had somehow managed to detect the scent of a burning book from the depths of the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, and had run up to demand an explanation.  
  
“I have had the most atrocious night!” Hermione’s voice had taken on a shrillness that only ever meant that she was on the warpath over some perceived injustice. Hermione headed the Being Division, and had made plenty of complaints about the treatment of House Elves and Werewolves, but none that would usually cause her to come storming into Harry’s office.  
  
“What happened?” he asked, almost making the mistake of smiling.   
  
“Last night I was out to dinner with Severus, and as we were leaving, some ignorant fool of a Wizard spat at him!  _Spat,_  Harry! Right in his face!”   
  
Harry should have known that it had something to do with Severus Snape. Everything in Hermione’s life came back to Snape these days. She’d obviously stewed all night on this particular slight, and a nights sleep had done nothing to dull her rage.  
  
“What do you mean, ‘spat at him’?” he asked.  
  
“Exactly as it sounds, Harry. He just walked up and spat at him. Right in his face. He called Severus ‘Death Eater scum’, and then Apparated, the dirty coward!”  
  
Harry sat back in his chair. “But why?” he asked. “Snape wasn’t a Death Eater, he was a spy…”  
  
“Well obviously this idiot didn’t hear about that!”  
  
“Did you recognise him?”  
  
“No, if I’d recognised him I would have owled you immediately.”   
  
“Okay, well I can get someone to do a sketch for you and we can check…”  
  
“Oh for goodness sake, Harry, I’m not here just because of the spitting thing. It’s bad enough, but I’d hardly make such a fuss about some twit who decided to spit on him.”  
  
Harry grimaced. When it came to any wrong being done to Snape, Hermione always made a fuss about it.   
  
“What upset me was back at his house,” Hermione continued. “Severus was telling me not to worry about it, and when I pushed the issue he told me it was nothing and that he gets hate mail all the time.”  
  
“Hate mail?”  
  
“Yes! He seems to think it was perfectly normal! He kept the letters! So I asked to see them, and, Harry, I can’t believe it!” She pulled a thick wad of letters from her bag and passed them across Harry’s desk. “Some of the things written in there, Harry. The things people threaten to do! It’s terrifying.”  
  
Harry’s frown deepened. Severus Snape might be Hermione’s pet project, but Harry had more than a passing interest in his welfare. Snape had been retrieved from the Shrieking Shack after Voldemort fell, and then patiently nursed back to health by the healers in the "Dangerous" Dai Llewellyn ward of St Mungo’s. Hippocrates Smethwyck himself had tended to Snape’s injuries, mostly because Harry had refused to leave the ward until he could be assured that Snape would live. Having defeated Voldemort, no one wanted to be the one to let Harry Potter down, and he wanted Severus Snape saved, so they were going to save him.  
  
Snape himself, however, had been less than pleased by the turn of events. He had woken up in the hospital as bitter and mean as ever. He had also been mortified that his personal history had been laid bare to Harry Potter, and he was alive to deal with the consequences. He’d spent weeks wishing he was dead while Harry tried to get to know him, and then one day Hermione had gone to the hospital and decided to take charge.   
  
It had been a surprise to everyone when Snape had actually responded to her. Over the years that followed, Hermione had become more and more infatuated. She found him fascinating, and devoted most of her time to being with him. There was just one small problem: it had been almost seven years, and Snape had never shown any inclination towards romance at all. Harry had no doubt that Snape liked her very much; he was never the kind of man to suffer fools gladly, and he had made no moves to remove Hermione from his life. In fact he appeared to genuinely enjoy her company. She actually managed to make him laugh, and he never seemed to tire of her, but much to Hermione’s frustration he hadn’t attempted give her to as much as a drunken kiss goodnight.  
  
Harry opened one of the letters, and his eyes widened as he read the contents. The language was abusive and threatening. Whoever had written it was angry at the fact that Snape was a free man – they obviously hadn’t kept themselves up to date with the news that he had more than been exonerated. Snape was a hero. Order of Merlin, First Class.  
  
“Are they all this bad?” he asked.  
  
“Yes. They’re disgusting. Hundreds of them; all like that. And he says it’s nothing! He says he’s not going to be bothered by a small group of ignorant people who can’t keep themselves abreast of current affairs. Can you believe it? Those letters are threatening to hurt him, and he thinks it’s nothing!”  
  
“He’s a pretty powerful wizard,” Harry said carefully. “And he lived with Voldemort watching his every move. Maybe he thinks these letters are nothing in comparison to what he’s already been through.”  
  
“Someone  _spat_  at him, Harry,” Hermione said desperately.  
  
“I know, Hermione.”  
  
“There must be something you can do!”  
  
He had known that she’d get to the point eventually.   
  
“Does he actually want us to investigate, Hermione?”  
  
“Does it matter?” Hermione asked.  
  
“Well, he  _is_  the victim, Hermione.”  
  
Hermione folded her arms, and glared at him, the kind of look that would have made him stutter out some kind of apology in his youth.  
  
“You know what he’s like,” Harry reasoned.   
  
“Can you just look into it?” she asked, obviously restraining herself. “You’re on light duties anyway, so it’s not like you’re in the middle of something really big.”  
  
Harry grinned.   
  
“I’ll talk to Robards about it.”  
  
“Do you need to go to Robards? You’re almost head of the department.”  
  
“Yeah, but he’s still here, Hermione. I can’t just start going over his head.”  
  
Hermione sighed dramatically, and threw herself into the chair opposite his desk.   
  
“You’re always going above his head,” she said.  
  
That was true, but Harry did at least pay lip service to his boss.   
  
“Robards has been good to me,” he said. “He’ll be fine with it. Light duties doesn’t mean no duties, and this is pretty light.”  
  
Hermione gave him the glare again, leaving him in no doubt that she didn’t consider the situation particularly light. Then she calmed a little and glanced around his tiny office.   
  
“They really did shove you in a cupboard, didn’t they?”  
  
“Oh I don’t know,” Harry replied with a wry smile. “I’ve had smaller cupboards.”  
  
Hermione rolled her eyes, but at least had the good grace to blush a little. She sighed and leaned back into the chair, before finally focusing on Harry.   
  
“Sorry,” she said, and offered him a smile. “I just got so… God, I just couldn’t believe it… I…” She stopped mid sentence and sniffed suddenly. “What are you burning?  _Is that a book?”_  
  
Harry started to laugh as Hermione got out of the chair and rushed to the fire place.  
  
“ _Oh!_ ” Her lip curled into a sneer reminiscent of Snape himself. “It’s that dreadful thing.”  
  
“Yeah. The foul git sent me a copy.”   
  
“Yes,” Hermione replied, nodding while watching the cover start to curl in the flames. “He sent me a copy too. There’s a whole chapter about how he and I were an item during sixth year, and that I was devastated that he left me during the Slug Club’s Christmas party.”  
  
“You’re kidding me?”  
  
“Alas no. Severus thought it was hilariously funny. I was less amused.”  
  
“But did you burn it?” Harry grinned.  
  
“No – I found a well placed Reductor Curse was far more satisfying. Another thing Severus found hilariously funny.”  
  
“So how is Snape then?” Harry asked, hedging to her favourite subject. “Aside from being spat at and getting hate mail, I mean.”  
  
“I can’t believe he hid this from me,” she said. “I see him every day… I thought he trusted me!” She looked at Harry, worry in her eyes. “Oh God, Harry, he doesn’t trust me!”  
  
“Of course he trusts you. He probably didn’t want to worry you. I mean, he knew you’d come here and demand we do something about it, and you know how much he hates the Auror office.”  
  
Hermione leaned heavily against the fireplace surround. “He’s just so frustrating sometimes,” she said quietly.  
  
“And yet you keep persevering with him. I swear, Hermione, you’re a saint. Most people would have given up by now.”  
  
“Not so much a saint as an idiot,” Hermione replied wearily. “Ginny told me to get out. She says that if he hasn’t done anything yet, then he never will.”   
  
“And what do _you_ think?” Harry asked gently. The last time he’d had dinner with Ginny they’d discussed Hermione’s predicament, and Harry agreed with Ginny. They’d also agreed that Hermione was in desperate need of a shag, but he had no plans to tell Hermione that.   
  
“Oh I agree with her,” Hermione said, laughing mockingly at herself. “But I just… I just  _can’t_  walk away. It’s like I’ve invested so much of myself in him; and if he’d just open his eyes…”  
  
“You’re too good for him, Hermione. If he knew what was good for him, he’d be on his knees pledging his undying love and devotion.”  
  
Hermione shook her head.   
  
“Well, I’m sure that thought will keep me warm at night.” She smiled, and checked her watch. “I’ve got to get to work,” she said, pushing herself away from the fireplace and heading for the door. “You’ll look into the letters, yes?”  
  
“Yeah, I’ll go see Robards in a minute. I’m on it.”  
  
“Good.” She hesitated by the door and turned back with a smile that Harry thought was a little wistful. “We should get together soon. Have drinks or something. We don’t do that anymore… we really should.”  
  
“Okay, Saturday? I’m not busy. We could get dinner or something.”  
  
“If you come over, I’ll cook,” she replied.  
  
Harry couldn’t quite disguise his grimace. Hermione was not a good cook, though not through lack of trying. There was also the fact that her flat was horribly bare and impersonal. She’d lived there three years and still had most of her things packed in boxes.   
  
“There’s a new café near my place, if you feel like going Muggle,” he said, trying to sound diplomatic. “I’ve been dying to try it.”  
  
Hermione made a disgruntled noise.   
  
“Alright, I  _won’t_  cook,” she said irritably. “Owl me the details.” She hurried out the door, giving him a wave as she did so and Harry grinned after her. Then he turned back to his desk, and began to wonder just what he could do about stopping Snape’s hate mail. 


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry Potter sets out to investigate who has been sending hate mail to former Death Eaters, and uncovers something far deadlier than he'd first feared.

**Chapter 3**  
  
Harry had expected his conversation with Gawain Robards to be rudimentary; he would tell him that he was going to look into a bit of hate mail, and Robards was going to nod and wave Harry out of his office. He had not expected it to turn into an argument that would see him get what he wanted at the cost of both his good mood, and much of his respect for the outgoing Head of Department.  
  
He’d expected Robards to at least be shocked by the letters, but when the older man glanced at the contents he had pursed his lips a little, shrugged, and told Harry that it was unfortunate, it was Harry who was shocked.  
  
“Is that all you have to say?” Harry asked. “ _That’s unfortunate_?”  
  
Robards gave him a look that let him know that he wasn’t all that surprised. The older man sighed and sat back in his chair.   
  
“Harry, you will soon realise that you can’t please everyone in this job.”  
  
“What does that have to do with a bunch of nasty letters?”  
  
“There are a lot of people out there who think that some of Voldemort’s Death Eaters got off lightly; and plenty of them write letters to vent that frustration,” Robards replied. His voice had a slow, deliberate calm, born from years of teaching hot-headed young Aurors that not every case was a crusade to be charged into without a backward glance.  
  
“ _Venting frustration?_ ” Harry shook his head in disbelief. “You knew about this? Severus Snape wasn’t even a Death Eater!”  
  
“Like I said, it’s unfortunate. He was a good spy – good enough that there are still people out there who don’t believe it. It’s a testament to his brilliance that people still question his loyalties.”  
  
“What, so he should wear his hate mail like a badge of honour?” Harry demanded.  
  
“Of course not, Harry,” Robards said patiently. “But most of these letters have probably been written by otherwise law abiding witches or wizards who lost someone in the war, or are still afraid.”  
  
“And what about the ‘otherwise law abiding’ wizard who spat at him? Should he accept that too?”  
  
“Assaults are rare…”  
  
Harry couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “Assaults?  _Assaults?_ ”  
  
“Are  _rare,_ Harry,” Robards said emphatically.   
  
“But they happen?” Harry asked, his voice tight. He could feel his temper rising. He thought he heard Robards groan, and he wanted to leap across the desk and shake the man.  
  
“We’ve had a few reports,” Robards admitted.  
  
“Why haven’t I heard about them?” Harry asked.   
  
“Because I didn’t give them to you to investigate,” Robards replied.  
  
Harry glared at him, and his eyes narrowed as he forced his anger down. He didn’t expect to get every case that related to Death Eaters, but he should have at least heard about attacks on them – especially if he was going to become Head of the Department in less than a year.   
  
“I knew when Albert Herbertson pissed into a public fountain in Norwich; I knew when Aurora Leadbeater was brought in for lewdness; I have no doubt that at least Ron knows why I’ve come in here this morning – and do you know why I know all these things? Because people talk. Aurors talk. We know each other. We discuss cases. If a Death Eater was attacked in our world, someone would have said something to me, even if they were making a joke out of it!”  
  
Robards grimaced.   
  
“I said I didn’t give them to you to investigate – I didn’t give them to anyone to investigate.”  
  
“ _What?_ ”   
  
Robards stood, and walked around his desk, clearly calculating how to talk to The Boy Who Lived. Having worked with Harry for several years, he had to have a fair understanding of Harry’s sense of right and wrong, and he didn’t appear to be comfortable with the conversation. He trailed his fingers over neat piles of paperwork on his desk top, and then looked Harry in the eye.   
  
“It was considered a waste of man hours,” he said crisply, raising his eyes to meet Harry’s as though daring him to challenge his authority.  
  
“A waste of man hours? People in our world are being attacked, and it’s considered a waste of man hours?”  
  
“Oh for pity’s sake, Harry! Are you planning to repeat everything I say? They are Death Eaters, not normal, everyday people! Death Eaters!”  
  
Harry stared at Robards with a mixture of amazement and disgust. He shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts, and stop himself from exploding into an angry rant. It didn’t work.  
  
“The only Death Eaters walking around freely in our world are the ones who did their time in Azkaban, or were pardoned. Severus Snape wasn’t even a Death Eater! If they have been freed, then they have the same rights as everyone else!”  
  
  
“Harry, there have been few attacks, and the ones that we do know about were not reported by the victims; they were reported by witnesses. If the supposed victim isn’t willing to come forward and report the incident, then there is nothing we can do.”  
  
“What, so if someone is too scared to come forward, we ignore it?” Harry asked sarcastically. “Is that general policy, or does it only apply to Death Eaters?”   
  
“We take it on a case by case concern,” Robards replied.  
  
“This is ridiculous!”  
  
“It is not ridiculous! There have been no official complaints made, and these people are hardly helpless.”  
  
“So you just made the decision to drop it?” Harry demanded.  
  
“No just me, Harry. The Minister’s office sent down the approval.”  
  
Harry ground his teeth, unable to believe that Kinglsey Shaklebolt would ever approve such a policy. He grabbed the letters that Hermione had given him that morning, and tucked them into his robes.   
  
“Can you at least tell me if the people who were attacked also received letters?”  
  
“I can’t be certain,” Robards replied. “Chances are that they did. The majority of Death Eaters who are not in Azkaban have received them.”  
  
“And how do you know that?”  
  
“Some have been forwarded here.”  
  
“So complaints have been made?”  
  
“About the letters, yes; a long time ago now.”  
  
“And?”  
  
“And what?” Robards demanded, his own temper giving way. “They are anonymous letters, Harry! I am not going to send Aurors into people’s homes on the off-chance that they put quill to parchment one day!”  
  
Harry glared at him, hating him for the first time since he started at the Auror office.   
  
“Well,  _I_ received a complaint on behalf of Severus Snape, and  _I_  want to investigate it.”  
  
Robards folded his arms. He knew full well that it was pointless to say no. Harry Potter was the kind of man who would simply work on something after hours if he was told not to waste his time on it.   
  
“When I retire, Harry, and you take over as Head of this office, you will discover that you will have more than your own moral compass to answer to.”  
  
“Better my moral compass than none at all,” Harry muttered.  
  
“Investigate it then,” Robards snapped. “Investigate, and see how far you get.”  
  
Harry had every intention of doing so. Although as he left Robards’ office, part of him could understand the man’s attitude. The Ministry had been taken over by Death Eaters during the war, and Robards himself had been placed under a powerful Imperius curse. Harry could understand why his boss was angry, but he could never ignore someone receiving death threats, nor would he ever believe that ignoring people being assaulted was justified. In Harry’s mind he figured that he didn’t have to like these people, but he did have to protect them. Somehow he doubted that many people would agree with him.  
  
An hour later a thick file landed on his desk with scant outlines of several assaults, and a key to a dead letter office. He sent owls requesting an interview to those victims who could be identified, and received prompt replies to his queries, all declining to see him. He could hardly blame them. Some of the reports were several years old, and the Ministry certainly hadn’t cared then, so they were probably dubious of Harry’s motives now. Also, the average Death Eater hardly craved a letter from Harry Potter. Of all people to put the fear of God into them, Harry Potter would be it.  
  
The dead letter office was another problem entirely. When former Death Eaters had first started receiving death-threats in their morning post, many of them had gone to the Ministry to report it. Trials had still been being conducted at the time, and Harry had been part of a task force rounding up dark wizards who had fled justice in the wake of Voldemort’s death. Not wanting to cause an uproar in a word that was still battle-scarred, the Auror office had advised the complaining ex-Death Eaters to forward any offending letters to the Ministry, where they would be investigated at a later date.   
  
A special room had been set up and the letters had been promptly forgotten. No-one was ever assigned to investigate, and those who complained, perhaps hoping to have their past forgotten, faded into their world and weren’t heard from again. The letters continued to be written, however, and over the years that followed the dead letter office had filled with what appeared to Harry to be hundreds of thousands of envelopes, many of which tumbled out and almost knocked him down when he opened the door.   
  
“Great,” Harry muttered as he eyed the sheer quantity of correspondence that suddenly swamped his legs. “Brilliant idea, go crusading for Death Eaters.”   
  
It could take more than a year to go through them all. In the end he filled three large sacks with letters and lugged them to his office, where he emptied them out and started sorting.  
  
Hours later he was still sifting through countless messages of hate and malice, and he was grateful when Ron decided to check in on him.  
  
“Fine job for the future Head of Department,” Ron said, taking in the sight of Harry sunk deep in between small mountains of post.  
  
Harry looked up at his best friend, and tried to smile. “It’s not even all of it. And I asked for the job, so I can hardly complain.”  
  
“I know,” Ron said, sounding a little amused. “Robards already told me that you’d gone mad and joined the ‘Be Kind to Death Eaters Society.’”  
  
Harry rolled his eyes.  
  
“But, as I saw Hermione earlier, I know why you’re doing this.”   
  
Harry chuckled softly. “Do you want to help?”  
  
“Sort through Death Eater hate mail?” Ron scoffed. “Not bloody likely.” He picked up a letter and flicked it open. “Wow, that’s pretty…  _violent_.”  
  
“Yeah, it seems a lot of our kind have some pretty active imaginations when it comes to how they’d punish a Death Eater.” Harry noticed that Ron was about to toss the letter aside. “Don’t throw it there, that’s the Malfoy pile.”  
  
Ron looked at the pile, almost as tall as he was, and grinned. “That’s really fucking impressive.”  
  
“They get more than everyone else combined,” Harry said. “I stopped reading after the first dozen. It’s pretty bad.”  
  
“Well, Lucius Malfoy getting three years was bullshit,” Ron said, tossing the letter on the pile. “I know my mum was pissed off about it. She said the Wizengamot should have just wrapped the sentence in a bow and made the gift official.”  
  
“Tell me your parents didn’t write any of these,” Harry said, an inkling of worry flaring in his stomach.  
  
“Course not… well, not that I know of anyway.” Ron waded through the letters to get to Harry. “Is it true that Snape has been getting them too?”  
  
“Yeah, a few a week apparently. I thought that was excessive until I saw this lot.”  
  
They both looked at the Malfoy pile and Harry scowled. He agreed that Lucius Malfoy had got off lightly, but the letters that he’d read were not aimed at Lucius Malfoy. The object of aggression was Lucius’s son, Draco. Most didn’t even suggest that he should have been sent to Azkaban, they dwelled on the fact that he was the last of the Malfoy line, and they wanted him dead before he could breed.  
  
“I can’t believe they let it go on this long,” Harry said angrily.  
  
“Who, the Malfoys?”  
  
“No! The Ministry! Us! This is ridiculous.”  
  
Ron stared at him as though he’d lost his mind; in fact, Ron was certainly starting to doubt Harry’s sanity.   
  
“Harry, it’s the fucking Malfoys! They’re rotten to the core, and they got off light! They deserve everything they get!”  
  
“And if it wasn’t for Narcissa Malfoy I’d be dead right now!” Harry cried.  
  
Ron didn’t back down. He glared back at his friend, ready to argue his point to the end.   
  
“She did it to save her own fucking kid, not you, Harry! And they tortured Hermione! My God, Harry, do you even remember that?”  
  
“That was Bellatrix,” Harry said, but his voice no longer held the same strength.  
  
“With the rest of them looking on! No one tried to stop her; they just wanted to impress their precious Dark Lord, and what better way to do it than torture and kill the Muggleborn best friend of Harry Potter?”  
  
Harry closed his eyes. He knew that everything Ron said was true, but he had made the decision long ago not to let his hatred control him. He could still remember the words that Dumbledore had said, about choosing between what is right and what is easy, and Harry knew which path he would always try to take.   
  
Yet all he really wanted was peace.  
  
“We cannot pick and choose who we do and do not protect, Ron,” he said quietly. “They are free because they were either pardoned, or they have served their prison terms, and we are Aurors, and it is our job to protect them.”  
  
Ron didn’t look either convinced or happy about it.   
  
“See, this is why you are going to be Head of Department,” he said. “You have a sense of right and justice and good; but don’t expect everyone to share it. I’ll do whatever you want, because I always do… but you know how I feel about these people, Harry, and it’s not going to change. It’s not like they did it because of duty, or because they had to; they did it because they wanted power! Because they thought they were better than everyone else!”  
  
“And what about Draco Malfoy?” Harry asked. It was the first time he’d thought about his old adversary in years.  
  
Ron nodded, conceding the point.   
  
“Alright, I’ll give you that one. He was scared and trying to protect his family – the only Death Eater with something close to an excuse.”  
  
“I think by the end a lot of them wanted out, but they were too scared to try.”  
  
“Well boo fucking hoo, Harry! They shouldn’t have gone down that path to begin with!”  
  
Harry sank further into the letters, seeming to deflate in despair.   
  
“So what do you want me to do? Ignore it like everyone else has?”  
  
“There’s still plenty of time to admit you’re wrong,” Ron said.  
  
Harry stared at him, his gaze unwavering.  
  
“But, of course, you don’t think you’re wrong; and you’re not going to let it rest.”  
  
  
“I understand what you’re saying,” Harry said. “I really do. I’m not asking you to like them – I’m not even asking you to be nice to them; but I need to find out if there is a connection between these letters and the assaults that have been reported.”  
  
“It could be anyone, Harry. It might not even be the same person; I mean, there are plenty of people out there who would love to smack a Death Eater in the mouth…”  
  
“Then we should find the people who did smack a Death Eater on the mouth. Or who cursed them. Or who decided to spit in someone’s face because they’re an ignorant twat.”  
  
“I can’t see you getting a case through the Wizengamot,” Ron said. “You find someone who hexed a Death Eater, and I’ll find you fifty people wanting to shake their hand.”  
  
“So you think it’s pointless?”  
  
Ron sighed.   
  
“No,” he said. “You just need to put a positive spin on it. You parade a family like the Malfoys in front of the Wizengamot and say that they’ve been hard done by, and you’ll be laughed out of the Ministry…”  
  
“But,” Harry prompted.  
  
“ _But_ , if you find the person who spat at Severus Snape, a hero of our world, departmental head, super spy extraordinaire, and have Snape tell them that he has been receiving death threats for years, they’ll set the whole Auror department onto the case. Snape’s a hero, the Malfoys are scum, it’s simple, really.”  
  
“Yeah… okay…” Harry frowned, his mind turning over. “There’s one problem, though.”  
  
“And what’s that?”  
  
“Snape will never make a complaint. He has never forwarded his letters to the Ministry, he never said anything to anyone. If this idiot hadn’t spat in his face in front of Hermione, we would have been none the wiser!”  
  
“You could convince him,” Ron said.  
  
“ _Me_? Me convince Snape?” Harry started laughing. “If Hermione can’t convince him, what chance do I have? He doesn’t think it’s important.”  
  
“Maybe he’s right.”  
  
Harry threw his hands up in exasperation. “He shouldn’t have to put up with people threatening to kill him!”  
  
“So you’ll have to convince him!”  
  
“And I’m back to square one.” Harry looked at the pile of letters addressed to the Malfoy’s, and a slow smile spread across his face. “Of course, I could always tell him that it was for a good cause.”  
  
“What? What cause?”  
  
“Who did Snape always have a soft spot for when we were at school?”  
  
Ron followed Harry’s gaze, and joined Harry in his smile.   
  
“Draco Malfoy,” he said.  
  
“Exactly. We tell him that Draco Malfoy is being harassed, but no one will take it seriously. If he comes forward with his letters then we can investigate it and we can help Draco.”  
  
Ron chuckled. “He’ll see through that in a second.”  
  
“Not if it’s true. The Malfoy’s have never reported an assault, but they’ve forwarded all these letters on. If they have been attacked somewhere, they might not have reported it – so we should pay Draco Malfoy a visit and ask a few questions.”  
  
Ron blanched. Obviously visiting the Malfoys was not something he thought necessary.   
  
“He works for the Misuse of Muggle Artefacts office…”  
  
Harry coughed, choking on his own spit.   
  
“What? Draco Malfoy works where?”  
  
“Misuse of Muggle Artefacts office. Dad told me. Delia hired him a couple of years ago.”  
  
“You’re kidding me!”  
  
“Nope.”  
  
“He works on this floor? I’ve never seen him once!”  
  
“Really?” Ron rolled his eyes. “I’ve been in the lift with you and him at the same time, how can you say you’ve not seen him?”   
  
“The elevator? I would have noticed Draco Malfoy in the lift.”  
  
“You know that guy who always has his hood up?”  
  
“Yeah, so?”  
  
“That’s Draco Malfoy!” Ron cried, exasperated by Harry’s apparent ignorance.   
  
“What? How would you know that’s Draco Malfoy?”  
  
Ron stared at him as though he was some kind of prize fool.   
  
“Harry, everyone knows it’s Draco Malfoy! That twit, Wendell Kromer, was saying something to him the other day, he even called him ‘Malfoy’!”  
  
Harry shook his head. Wendell Kromer had drunkenly come onto him at a club once, and the memory of the man breathing foul breath into his ear and whispering suggestions that Harry wouldn’t do with someone he liked, let alone someone he found revolting, meant he forced himself to switch off whenever the man was anywhere near. Obviously that had been to the detriment of his basic observation skills.  
  
“Have _you_  ever spoken to him?” Harry asked.  
  
“To Draco Malfoy? No fucking way.” Ron shuddered at the thought. “But as he is just down the hall, we can go and see him tomorrow and…”  
  
“Why wait until tomorrow?”  
  
“Harry, what time do you think it is?”  
  
Harry shrugged. His office had no windows, and even if they did he wouldn’t have bothered with the time. When he was immersed in a case, he just kept going.  
  
“It’s…” Ron checked his watch. “It’s half-seven, Harry. Malfoy, and any other sane person, has gone home for the night.”  
  
“Then we should go to the Manor.”  
  
“ _Now?_ We can’t go now! Lavender is going to rip my balls off for being late as it is.”   
  
Harry shrugged. He hadn’t exactly forced Ron to stay there with him. It was hardly his fault if Lavender Weasley had a fit if Ron wasn’t home at five-thirty each afternoon.  
  
“It’s alright,” Harry said. “I can go by myself.”  
  
“Not bloody likely, mate!”  
  
Harry laughed and shook his head. “I think I’m fairly safe going to the Malfoys’.”  
  
“The last time we went to the Malfoys’ we ended up in the dungeon and Hermione ended up tortured. Never trust a family who has a dungeon.”  
  
“The war is over, Ron.”  
  
“Well, I don’t trust them as far as I could throw them.”  
  
Harry smirked, and wondered if he was referring throwing the whole family as a single entity.  
  
“It’s not funny, Harry.”  
  
“It is a bit funny,” Harry replied, still smirking. “And I am going tonight. The sooner I get started the better.”  
  
“Fine, just give me five minutes to let Lav know I’m still working and not out drinking somewhere.”  
  
“Why would she even think that?” Harry asked.  
  
“Because it’s Friday. And once upon a time we used to go out on a Friday night. You remember that thing we used to have, don’t you? Fun, I think it was called.”  
  
Harry scoffed with good humour, but he had to wonder how long it had been since they’d all gone out together. He worked more hours than anyone he knew, and Hermione was obsessed with Snape and her various other causes. Ron was married and his wife was heavily pregnant. Going out and having fun seemed trivial when the scope of their lives was taken into account, but now that he thought about it, he realised how much he missed it.  
  
Ron went off to fire-call Lavender. By the time he returned it was after eight, and he didn’t look happy. Harry reiterated that he really didn’t need to go.  
  
“After the bollocking I just got, I’m going,” Ron replied darkly.  
  
“Fair enough.”  
  
And they set off for Malfoy Manor.

**Author's Note:**

> I have a bit of a fascination with the idea of impoverished Malfoy's, and this is the result of that. 
> 
> I did start this a few years ago, but lost most of it in a massive computer crash. I've only now decided to try and write it all again. Hopefully it won't all be slow going.


End file.
